NEW DELHI: He is the city’s own Greta Thunberg, the teen Swedish activist who is making waves with her global campaign aimed at forcing world leaders to undertake targeted policy initiatives to tackle the growing threat posed by climate change.
A student of Class 11 at Modern School, Vasant Vihar, Aman Sharma has been leading the rising chorus of voices in the national capital against air pollution, an issue which has grown from hogging dinner table discourse and political bickering to a public health emergency.
The teen has been busy mobilising children in a fight against practices poisoning the air in the national capital.
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Drawing inspiration from Thunberg’s stirring address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this year, urging world leaders to wake up to the threat of climate change, Aman took it upon himself to drive the city’s campaign against air pollution.
Sharma featured prominently in the country’s first students’ strike in March this year, drawing from Thunberg’s manner of protest — skipping school and demanding a concerted global effort to address concerns arising out of climate change.
“I was part of Thunberg’s climate strike, which saw children world over skipping schools and hitting the streets demanding strong action against climate change. Climate change is arguably the single biggest threat to humans right now and it knows no gender, religion, colour or creed. It will affect everyone, however powerful,” the young climate activist told this newspaper.
“Our first strike was organised in March and we have decided to observe a ‘Global Strike Week’ from September 20 to 27 every year, till our concerns are addressed. At least 200,000 children across India took part in the climate strike,” he said.
The green warrior said he is fully focused on making good on his pledge to raise general awareness on the deadly and ruinous manifestations of climate change by putting together an army of young volunteers to the cause.
An online petition, ‘The Declaration of National Climate Emergency’, by Aman, has already garnered 3,28,465 signatures and garnered global support.